Thursday, April 21, 2011

Living Social..but not with truth in advertising

Is EVERYBODY getting blitz-attacked by 'Living Social' ads, customized for their home town? I usually kind of filter this crap out, (disclosure- I did sign up for Groupon when they first started advertising) But these Living Social ads are ubiquitous...you can't get away from them. It's a multimedia blitz... they're on every news page, random physical spots, TV- I was kind of surprised not to see them on my roll of toilet paper this morning. I'm mostly OK with advertising...lots of it provides good entertainment, or serves as a reflection as to where society's values really are. Listening to the side effects detailed on the pharma ads is good for a laugh any time. (watch for sudden drop in blood pressure, dizziness, vomiting, headaches, numbness and sometimes death...oh, no, not death?)  But these Living Social ads are bugging me because they're purposely misleading. Mine pop up daily with teasers like..."Get 50%  off the Best Food in Hotchkiss"  or "Save on the Best Restaurants in Hotchkiss" So...what's wrong with that? .....Uuuummm.... REALITY.
Hotchkiss is not known for good restaurants. They had one Chinese Restaurant (it's closed now) but it was pretty scary. In fact, when you mentioned you were going for Chinese food in Hotchkiss, locals would roll their eyes and say, "Oooooooohhhhhh. are you sure?" There is one pretty good place where you can get burgers, but the other places  in town consist of a bar, the gas station/convenience store and the Elks Club, which attracts patrons in with their signage....

I'm not sure what a "Smoothered Steak" is, but I checked both sides of the sign and it read the same on both the front and back. 
I'm not seeing anything like this on the Living Social ads.
The other signage I recently found in town was a sandwich board outside the aforementioned bar that serves food. I couldn't get a picture of this because the pink chalk it was written in wouldn't show up, but it read
75% TACOS
I think what they meant to say was 75 cent tacos, but here in Hotchkiss, you can never be sure. If they did mean 75% Tacos, I'm really curious about what the other 25% would be. So I don't care that Living Social is in my face all day, every day, trying to get me to sign up- I just wish their marketing staff would spend a little time studying demographics before they go balls out. Really. You don't know Hotchkiss. If you did, you would know that the best food in town is at my sister's house, and I don't need to sign up to get a discount there.

1 comment:

  1. Exactly the same here! Although I find their visual ad's misleading instead of worded ad's. This morning there was a 'things to do in [my town]' advert that popped up... with a photograph of a tornado jet fighter flying.... I click on the advert to see I can get 5% off a local shop... That's a bit different to flying a fighter plane...

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